Rationalizing Anomalies

How, and more importantly, why do people attempt to rationalize their bad choices? What is the driving force behind the urge to be socially acceptable but also, being part of a group that accepts people on the basis of their social conformity? People make mistakes, no doubt about that. But sometimes they get into fights with each other. Whether a clash of characters, a dispute over ideas or simple daily confrontations, all are reasons why people might be at odds with each other. However, one observes the phenomenon of both people feeling that they are right and the other person is wrong. Why? Well, because fights create some kind of emotional imbalance for the individual which in turn creates the need for returning back to some form of an equilibrium. How do people reach that equilibrium? The short answer is that they become creative. They construct a scenario, partially true and partially imaginary, that ex post rationalizes their actions whereas the residual, in other words, the blame, is to be found on the other person. In essence, rationalization of anomalies constitutes a form of self-deception. A deception which is usually reinforced by the surroundings such as close friends and family. There are huge differences of course, across individuals in defining the degree of truth and the degree of imagination in such scenarios. What I would argue is that the individual introduces imagination into the situation up to, at least, the degree where the blame is effectively transferred to the other person. Thus, the individual rationalizes the anomaly within the relationship by blaming the, by now distant, “other person”. Such is the massive deception of individuals that disputes last a long long time simply because they are surrounded by feedback loops which further support imaginary arguments. What should people do in cases of conflict? Well the answer should be straight forward by now: Stick to the facts, eliminate imagination (but not evidence) and be willing to accept mistakes. Otherwise, you may continue to live in your i-m-always-right world of self deception that will eventually lead to a total collapse of the person within, a collapse of essentially a character based on lies, on pure imagination, thus, on nothingness.